36th Division in World War I

Chapter V
The 71st Brigade At St. Etienne
Continued

FOOTNOTES

1Coffman, War To End All Wars, 299-301; American Battle Monuments Commission, 36th Division, 5-7; American Battle Monuments Commission, 2d Division: Summary of Operations in the World War (Washington, 1944), 49-50; Oliver L. Spaulding and John W. Wright, The Second Division: American Expeditionary Force in France, 1917-1919 (New York, 1937), 162-164; Palmer, Pershing, 298-301.

2Stallings, Doughboys, 211, 281; John A. Lejeune, The Reminiscences of a Marine (Philadelphia, 1930), 336-360; Ernst Otto, The Rattk at Blanc Mont, translated from the German by Martin Lichtenberg (Annapolis, Maryland, 1930), 1-127; American Battle Monuments Commission, 2d Division, 51-62; Spaulding and Wright, Second Division, 18 1-186. Although the 2nd contained only one brigade of marines, it was commonly known as "The Marine Division."

3Spence, "History of the Thirty-sixth," 52-58, 38 1-383; Smith, Special Report of Thirty-sixth Division, General Whitworth, Special Report of Tour in Line of Seventy-First Brigade, December 15, 1918, GHQ, G-3 Reports, Colonel Bloor, Operations of the 142nd Infantry, War Journal for 36th Division, Secret Memorandum Regarding Move, 36th Division HQ, October 4, 1918, Historical File, 36th Division, AEF Records, RG 120, National Archives; Chastaine, Story of the 36th, 68-72. Appended to Spence’s history are numerous documents bearing on the 36th’s activities in France. Most relate to the division’s service at the front.

4Statements of Oscar F. Washam, Chas. C. Diamond, Eugene Templer, and Jno. E. Graf, Personnel War Experiences, Supplemental File, Smith, Special Report of the Thirty-sixth Division, Whitworth, Special Report of Tour in Line of Seventy-First Brigade, December 15, 1918, GHQ, G-3 Reports, Statement of Captain Stephen D. Ridings, Medical History of the 142nd Infantry, Historical [144] File, 36th Division, AEF Records, RG 120, National Archives; Daily Oklahoman, December 2, 15,1918, February 9, March 16,1919; Spence, "History of the Thirty-sixth," 58-65, 71-80, 385-387. The reader is hereby informed that there are many small factual disagreements in the 36th sources, of which not the least is the precise time of events during October, 1918. I have used those facts and times that appear most accurate based on careful examination of all sources.

5These ratings are in [U.S. War Department General Staff], Histories of Two Hundred and Fifty-One Divisions of the German Army Which Participated in the War (1914-1918) (Washington, 1920), 275-278, 636-638, 676-678. They are based on records of the Intelligence Section of the AEF General Staff.

6Spence, "History of the Thirty-sixth," 8 1-107, 190,388-400; Daily Oklahoman, March 23, 1919; Chastaine, Story of the 36th, 81-104; Stallings, Doughboys, 281, 287; Lejeune, Reminiscences, 360-361; American Battle Monuments Commission, 2d Division, 62-63; Otto, Battle At Blanc Mont, 124-141, 198-199; Hart, Company K, 66-68; Whitworth, Special Report of Tour in Line of Seventy-First Brigade, December 15, 1918, GHQ, G-3 Reports, Bloor, Operations of the 142nd Infantry, Historical File, Statement of Washam, Personnel War Experiences, Supplemental File, 36th Division, AEF Records, RG 120, National Archives. The 2nd Division unit on the left of the 71st Brigade was the 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment, 4th Marine Brigade, while those on the right were the 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, and one or more companies of a machine gun battalion.

7This information was probably ascertained by aerial observation. The Germans may have known the attack was coming also as a result of information gathered by their patrols which infiltrated the gaps in the lines. This would perhaps explain the copy of the attack orders found on the body of a dead German officer after the battle had begun. One doubts the assertion of a Texas newspaper that the Americans were betrayed by a German spy. A German report of the October 8 action referred to "captured enemy orders" naming the "attack objective" but did not state when they were obtained. Otto, Battle At Blanc Mont, 135-136, 147; Spence, "History of the Thirty-sixth," 83, 85, 188; Star- Telegram, January 3, 1919; Daily Oklahoman, January 7, 1919.

8See letter of Richard F. Burges to Judge Caldwell, November 3, 1918, Burges Papers, Archives, University of Texas; Statement of Washam, Personnel War Experiences, Supplemental File, 36th Division, AEF Records, RG 120, National Archives; Statesman, November 25, 1918.

9Whitworth, special Report of Tour in Line of Seventy-First Brigade, GHQ, G3 Reports, GHQ, War Diaries, Services of the Thirty-sixth Division, Bloor, Operations of the 142nd Infantry, Historical File, Statements of 141st and 142nd Infantrymen, Personnel War Experiences, Supplemental File, 36th Division, AEF Records, RG 120, National Archives; Spence, "History of the Thirty-sixth," 108-161, 222-231, 401-404, 513; Lejeune, Reminiscences, 361-363; Otto, Battle At Blanc Mont, 140-173; Chastaine, Story of the 36th, 102-156; American Battle Monuments Commission, 2d Division, 63-66; American Battle Monuments Commission, American Armies and Battlefields in Europe: A History, Guide, and Reference Book (Washington, 1938), 355; Spaulding and Wright, Second Division, 187-189; Daily Oklahoman, November 29, 1918, March 23, 30, April20, May 18, 1919; Star-Telegram, November 26, December 8, 15, 1918, June 19, 20, 1919; Toy and Poynor, Brief History of the 111th Field Signal Battalion; Statesman, November 3, 25, 27, 1918; Jary (ed.), Camp Bowie, 117, 121.

10Hawkins, a Texas National Guard officer, "had not been well" at the time the regiment left Somme-Suippes and by the time he conferred with his company commanders during the early morning hours of October 8, the "strain of the command, together with the anxiety engendered by the wanderings on the night of the 6th, had begun to tell" on him. His "condition was such that the company commanders with difficulty obtained information as to his plans for the attack." Hawkins, "for some inexplicable reason," ordered a rearrangement of companies at the conference and the pertinent company commanders were in the midst of making "the shift" when the American barrage and German counter-barrage commenced. As if the confusion caused by the late arrival of the orders confirming the attack and designating H hour was not enough, Hawkins’s decision to make an adjustment just before the attack made matters worse. In Hawkins’s defense, however, it would appear that the change might have been completed before the battle began if his company commanders had not been delayed by enemy shell fire "in returning to their companies" after the conference. Be that as it may, Hawkins’s condition" became "very much worse" while the shift was under way and as the advance began, "and suddenly, without the knowledge of any of his officers, he returned to the Regimental P.C. with the statement that his battalion had failed to get off, and with the request that the 3rd Battalion be ordered to leap-frog his battalion and become the support of the assault." Colonel Jackson complied with the major’s request, but both the 2nd and 3rd Battalions had by this time gone forward and, presumably, Jackson’s orders never reached Major Wright. Hawkins evidently remained in command on October 8, but the next day his "nervous condition" grew worse and he "was evacuated for shell shock." Spence, "History of the Thirty-sixth," 123-125, 150, 537; Star- Telegram, June 4, 1917.

11The story of how individuals of the 142nd Infantry died is told in Chaplain C. H. Barnes, History of the 142nd Infantry of the Thirty-Sixth Division, October 15, 1917, to June 17, 1919 (n.p., 1922), Chapter 9. Major Harry B. Gilstrap of Chandler, 111th Military Police, who was transferred from the 36th on October 20, 1918, remembered Chaplain Barnes working on the "records of deaths and burials" at the time "I left the division." Daily Oklahoman, February 9, 1919.

12Statements of Ridings and Hawley, Services of the Thirty-sixth Division, Medical History of the 142nd Infantry, Historical File, Statements of 14 1st and 142nd Infantrymen, Personnel War Experiences, Supplemental File, 36th Division, AEF Records, RG 120, National Archives; Letter of John A. White, October 12, 1918, in possession of author; Star-Telegram, November 15, 26, December 15, 1918, January 1, June 20, 1919; Daily Oklahoman, May 18, 1919; Statesman, November 3, 1918; Otto, Battle At Blanc Mont, 5-6, 146, 169-195; Spaulding and Wright, Second Division, 191, 280-281; Lejeune, Reminiscences, 364; Barnes, 142nd Infantry, 183-184; Coffman, War To End All Wars, 335-337; [Historical Section, Army War College], United States Army in the World War 1917-1918: Organization of the American Expeditionary Forces (Washington, 1948), 47; Spence, "History of the Thirty-sixth," 69, 491, 511, 536-549; Jay A. Matthews, Jr., "Taps of the Bugler: Major Edwin Hutchings and the First Combat Action of the 36th Division," Military History of Texas and the Southwest, XI, No. 2 (1973), 7 1-75. In regard to the losses of October 8, the Arrow Head, May 2, 1919, mistakenly indicates that Company B, 14 1st Infantry, suffered the highest casualties in the 71st. The figures it gave were actually those for Company C.

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Panthers to Arrowheads: The 36th (Texas-Oklahoma) Division In World War I
by Lonnie J. White
Copyright © 1984 1998 by Military History Associates, Inc.
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